Oh My God I'm Black! June 4 1995

 

by Mary-Anne Sam

By Melbourne Workers' Theatre

At Budinski's Wed-Sat 8pm until June 10, 1995

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 4, 1995 for The Melbourne Times

 

We eavesdrop happily on other people's lives because others' loves are interesting and we are, by nature, sticky-beaks. Oh My God I'm Black! is a biographical narration with songs performed by Mary-Anne Sam and her life has been a doozy. I mean, tough!

 

Sam is one of two children of a Torres Strait Island woman and a white Melbourne lad who nicked off early in Sam's life and was eventually discovered to have three families. Sam gives us snatches of her life from early childhood, the death of her mother, homelessness, life and death with her white Nana, school, love, the Aboriginal network. And the moment when she recognises in the mirror "Oh my God, I'm black!"

 

Her love of singing is her major link with her dead mother and songs, mostly American or Carribean-influenced, pepper her personal story. The story is interesting but the script screams for a tough dramaturgical hand. It flits from moment to moment without any focus or dramatic content.

 

Theatre needs a dramatic structure to give dynamic energy to a life. The issues of belonging, acceptance, family and colour are complex and a clearer focus on specific moments might have served this piece better.

 

A solo show is a tough call demanding of the performer a strong stage presence and theatrical range. This piece was more effective when it physicalised scenes and attempted to bring secondary characters to life.

 

 Otherwise it remained too static with Sam attached to the microphone. It swerves too close to melodrama and indulgence with too obvious songs selected for their relevance.